ABSTRACT
If the poetry of popular instruction is one of the poles anchoring the SEL within the context of thirteenth century English writing, then romance is surely another. While never literally a source for SEL items, so pervasive is the influence of romance that there is hardly an item in the collection that does not show its traces, from the opening legend of Hilary, whose battle with the pope forms the dramatic culmination to a hero's exile-and-return narrative, to the concluding legend of Pilate, with its striking resemblance to tales of overlooked or unpromising siblings who nevertheless rise to fame and fortune; or from Eustace, with its profound reliance on one of the most enduring of romance patterns, loss and reconciliation, to Jerome, with its endearing (and Yvain-like) account of the saint's friendship with a lion. Even in the moment of announcing its project of narrating true stories of saints according to the chronological order in which their feasts are observed, the SEL blurs the lines between hagiography and romance. Thus, as we saw earlier, the prologue's mini-narrative of Christ's coming as savior to mankind is dressed in the metaphoric garb of romance: Christ the king goes forward into battle with the help of John the Baptist, a 'hardy kni3t' who fights 'fast' until his life is lost. After Christ's own death his kingdom would be forfeit were it not for the 'kni3tes of JDC rerewarde' who follow his example by sacrificing their lives in turn; these knights of the rearguard are, of course, none other than the saints whose legends we are about to hear.
